> They have put a kill switch in them somewhere

Um, isn't the TRIGGER a kill switch?

The US won't let al-Qaeda or ISIS get armed drones any more than the US would let them get US made weapons.

I hope that answers your question.

:-)

I sure hope it was not necessary for me to use the SARCASM tag in the above post.

Um, I am going to be very surprised if they forbid citizens to buy unlimited numbers of armed drones. Or if they regulate ownership, or require background checks or registration. After all, when the 2nd amendment was written, it envisioned every citizen having enough firepower to start a world war.

Please remember this holiday season that firearms make excellent gifts for the entire family. Family packs available at participating retailers. Check out the new Starter Guns sized just right for the little ones. Please use firearms responsibly when drinking. The NRA offers discounts to those who can show proof of mental impairment or illness.

This is a strategy for demonstrating the absurdity of the current patent regime, right?

I think you may have meant this is a tragedy for demonstrating the absurdity of the current patent regime. Just a typo, I'm sure.

Shouldn't it be called: Algorithmic Patent Trolling

One year vaper, previously 20 year smoker. I've had the medical labs done to show how much damage was undone in just one year.

At 41, I can run farther and faster, keep up with young folk better than most of my non-smoker friends of the same age. 3 years ago this was not the case.

If you trust the document's own encryption mechanism, then you are still left with a problem. How do you communicate the password? PKI is a good answer.

That is my point. A basic understanding should be expected. Now a detailed expertise. I agree completely with what you are saying, and I say similar things elsewhere here.

Just to add: if you did what I described, you would quickly discover that the actual secret you should send using PKI is the key to some other more efficient symmetric algorithm.

Your question demonstrates that you don't understand the problem. How do I securely send you a file? If I use Excel's encryption, then we have a new problem: how do I send you the password to open it?

Furthermore, it is a legitimate question to consider whether you should trust Excel's security. (And I'm not picking on Microsoft. At least not this time.) You don't have access to Excel's source code. You can't know it is secure. You could sleep a lot better if you simply assume the Excel is just like any file, and like any other file, you encrypt it and sign it with PKI so that the person on the other end can decrypt it and verify it is from you. (Actually encrypt and sign a small key to a more efficient symmetric algorithm.)

It depends on what you mean by 'know how it works'. If they are using it in the project, then I expect them to 'know how it works'. I don't expect them to be able to write their own from scratch. Just a basic understanding. Not an explanation that you sprinkle magic encryption sauce on the data.

Generate a pair of keys. Make one public. Ask the guy at the other end to do the same. Now we can read each other's public keys (and so can anyone else). I encrypt the PDF with your public key and then with my private key. The guy at the other end can verify that it came from me, and he is the only one who can decrypt it. I don't need to know all the detailed math. I don't have to write my own BigInteger code. Just a basic understanding.

Why is this more to ask than that someone knows the language that a shop uses. Knows how to use the framework we use. Etc?

Life Long Learners is also a plus.

Whew! Now that I've got a diploma, or certificate or whatever, I don't ever have to learn anything ever again!

I would place much greater value on a developer who prefers to constantly learn.

I beg to differ! Plenty of developers are exceedingly competent at finding code on the intarwebs and pasting it in to the project.

I don't expect every developer to be an expert in cryptography. I do expect every developer to have a basic understanding of cryptography, which would include the type of understanding that the poster was asking for. What is PKI? How would I use it? I don't expect you to develop a secure cryptographic library and I don't expect you to develop the microprocessor in your computer. But I expect you to have a basic understanding of how a microprocessor works.